Page 17 - QDG Vol. 9 No. 2 CREST

1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards
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1st Troop are set to deploy to Sierra Leone where they will carry on the work that QDG has done in recent years, revolving around training the Royal Sierra
Leonean Armed Forces.
Ready for the Big Push
are certain, death & taxes. I would posit that there is a third certainty, that if you stay long enough in the Army the RAF will drive a coach and horses through your best laid plans at least once! This is not a cheap shot at our comrades in light blue, but regrettably one of the fall outs from Op PITTING in the summer of 2021 where RAF aircraft are still feeling the effects of the Non-Combatant Evac- uation Operation.
The knock on effect was that B Sqn suddenly had a significant amount of white space in the forecast of events. This was indeed a blessing and a curse! In these manpower strapped times the Army-wide trawls come in thick and fast and without having the unifying event of Ex Rattlesnake it looked likely that the squadron would be sent to the four winds. As I write this that is exactly what has happened, but in a positive fashion. 1st Troop are set to deploy to Sierra Leone where they will carry on the work that QDG has done in recent years, revolving around training the Royal Sierra Leonean Armed Forces. This is espe- cially important in terms of Defence’s wider engagement strategy in West Africa given the fact that the long running International Security Assistance Team (ISAT) closed last year. 1st Troop will find themselves at the sharp end of Defence Engagement and it will be excellent to report on their results in the next edition of the Journal.
2nd and 3rd Troops are also about to deploy (regrettably to less warmer climates!) in support of the Light Dragoons on their rotation of Ex Wessex Storm. This is an excellent opportunity to export QDG professionalism and also
for the younger members of both troops to experience one of the best resourced exercises in the UK. Also, given the QDG’s upcoming change from 1st (UK) Division to 3rd (UK) Division it could be one of the final times that we conduct the exercise in the short term.
This type of short notice
activity will become more
frequent across the Army as
we change to new manning
structures and additional
pressures, either across
Defence or with the support
to UK Civil Powers, become
apparent. Throughout the
last few years the Army, and
especially the QDG, has shown its flex- ibility to meet the challenges. Members of B Sqn have also shown their flexibility in supporting the COVID 19 booster programme and also backfilling a number of UK resilience tasks which have been
asked of them. This is often overlooked in terms of how important these roles are and how much the UK relies on Defence to support them.
Looking forward to the next year B Sqn is in a good place. Once we are all back from our separate lines of activity we will be in a position to welcome back the remainder of the Regiment from Mali in summer 2022. There is also a large Adventurous Training window to look forward to in the spring, where it is my intent that we deploy as a Squadron to Germany to sample the delights of
Bavaria in the late spring. It will be a well earned break for the Squadron and also bring us back together having been split up for recent months.
RAOS
Sgt Williams’ vape smoke screen